Hmm

[quaddamager]

I have difficulties introducing into the first an especially the second gear. I simply cannot find the position to change it. I must hardly pull the lever to the drivers seat. The rest of them are working smoothly. When in neutral, the lever can be balanced easily from left to right. Is there a lever problem and the gear box or simply the clutch cable should be more tensioned? :rolleyes:

[aerosam99]

I had a very similar problem with one of my previous maesties

Have a look at the linkage (on top of the gearbox) you will see two rods with ball joints on the ends of them, one short, one long. There should be very little play in the joints but they tend to wear as they are plastic. If these are loose or popped off, they will cause the symptoms you describe.

:idea: The fix is simple, get a piece of ordinary paper, photocopier paper is good, just the right thickness. tear a small square off, pop off the offending ball joint, place the paper over the ball and push the rod back on! :idea:

I did this one mine when i had lost 1st, second, 4th and reverse. I had the car for another 5,000 miles and never had another problem with the gearbox!

[E_T_V]

It sounds to me like the linkage is worn on the gearbox as mentioned above. You can readjust the linkage if you want but it isn't very easy and is a bit of trial and error apparently. You can take out some of the wear as indicated above but a much better fix is to either get new linkage pieces or instead of using paper as above, use a couple of layers of carrier bag or a piece of polythene (it'll last much longer than using paper).

[quaddamager]

:) yup
I thought the same ,..never tried to fix this way,...
In fact the end of the linkage broke some years ago and I blocked the cable with a screw. It`s possible indeed that the screw to be,...scr**ed.
I`ll try this and tell u if it worked.

Thanks

[E_T_V]

Sorry I may have mislead you. Is your car a VW gearbox or a honda one? (2litre engines had honda boxes)
The VW boxes have the ball joint linkages as we've both described, however the diesel and EFI has a different linkage. What usually happenes on these gearboxes is that the gear selector becomes very very wobbly and you can move it in all directions even if it is still in gear! What you'll need to do on this type of linkage is remove the retaining pin where the hollow gear selector tube slides over the gearbox gear selector and replace the worn pin/hole with a nut and bolt and tighten them up. This improves the gear selection 100%. If the old pin comes out easily the job should only take 10 mins. If it is difficult to get out you can fabricate a tool to get it out which is what both tony and I had to do when we did our cars recently.

[MGTurbo469]

... think my turbo may have wobbly-gear coming on slowly but surely, it really is becoming a bit of a shocker. Full on motion of the gearstick is permitted, even when its in gear etc. :worried:

when it becomes too much to cope with I'll have to have a look and see what can be done... it's obviously the Honda 'box, so its option 2 listed here?

Any tips in general before I get started or is it more a "get stuck in" sort of vibe? How best to get access to the linkage itself?

Any tips on this much appreciated as I'm fairly new to the technical side.

Thanks all.
Alex :)

[E_T_V]

No probs it was all a mystery to me until a couple of months ago when I had to do an engine swap.

If you can get the front of your car on ramps then do that, if not a jack and some axle stands will do. The linkage pin is right on the bottom of the gear linkage, and you tap/bash the pin out from below.

Basically the gear selector is a short shaft coming out of the gearbox with a hole drilled in it. Over this shaft fits the hollow tube that is connected to the gear stick. The hole tends to get enlarged in the tube bit and so you get the "stirring porridge" effect at the gearstick. All you have to do is remove the pin (I'll come onto that later) and replace it with a nut and bolt and a couple of washers to tightly grip the tube to the gearbox shaft (eliminating the problem of the pin waggling in the hole.

The pin is one of them spring pins that are hollow in the middle with a slot cut in them. (when you tap them in they expand in the hole). Sometimes they can be a pain to remove. However you can easily fabricate a suitable drift to tap/bash it out. you'll need a round bar that is the same as the outside diameter of the pin/hole. grind/turn a couple of millimetres off of the end of the rod to form a step in it. Easy to do but difficult to explain I hope the picture helps a bit. What you want is for the centre of your drift to fit inside the hole of the pin, and the outside of the step you have just ground onto the tool to fit up against the pin. Give it a couple of good bashes with a hammer and it'll be out in no time. I say put it up on ramps first because otherwise there is no room to swing the hammer! If that fails on its own get someone to hold something heavy against the other side of the shaft so that thew bounce/flex in it is reduced.

If you need anymore help then I'll try and get the camera out when it stops raining.

[quaddamager]

How can know if it`s a VW or Honda gear box?
A secondary problem is that it simply shifts out from the fifth gear at high speeds.
:laugh:

[Beaker]

2.0 engine is a honda gearbox, 1.3/1.6 volkswagon gearbox. Hope that helps :)

[quaddamager]

originally it was an efi2.0 but the previous owner changed it to 2.0TD Perkins but I don`t know about the gear box,... :D

[E_T_V]

Both the diesel and the EFI share the honda box (although I;m fairly sure they'll have different ratios inside).